


feels good, feels good, feels good

by firingmaincannon (dasheroyjackson)



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: (the bad sex/misgendering stuff is in a non-grimmons relationship), Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gender Dysphoria, M/M, Misgendering, Trans Dick Simmons, a bunch of anxiety mess, consent issues masquerading as "bad sex", repeated deadnaming, some of it takes place when simmons is a minor so that's what the underage tag is for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 01:49:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13753713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasheroyjackson/pseuds/firingmaincannon
Summary: (PLEASE READ THE TAGS esp regarding consent issues, and also the dysphoria/misgendering--this could be triggering for trans folks. please tell me if I missed any tags/warnings)A vent fic about pretending to be someone you aren't, and pretending to want things you don't, because you don't know anything else is possible; and the wonderful moment when someone finally lets you stop pretending.





	feels good, feels good, feels good

**Author's Note:**

> ANOTHER REMINDER TO READ THE TAGS

Ricky Simmons is a sophomore and he’s dating Tim. Tim is a junior and has nice hands and he likes to hold Ricky’s hands and stroke his knuckles. Ricky was cold while they were walking outside once and Tim gave him his coat. He really likes Tim.

He keeps telling himself that as Tim shoves his tongue into Ricky’s mouth. French kissing feels slimy. Tim’s tongue feels too big and he’s being too pushy with it. Ricky’s half-afraid he’s going to choke because he is a mouth-breather and with Tim’s tongue down his throat he can’t get any air in. He wants to sit back, to take a breath and regroup, but Tim is holding him tightly around the waist. It feels nice. Ricky keeps telling himself it feels nice. 

Tim is warm, that’s good. There’s actually parts of him that are a little too warm--his face against Ricky’s, his tongue, and the place where their waists keep touching. Ricky can feel himself shrink back a little from the contact, but Tim’s arms are still there around him. Ricky thinks about Tim’s nice hands and how much more he liked them when they weren’t wandering. Especially now that they’re wandering forward, away from his waist and up, and under his shirt.

“Um,” Ricky says, finally pulling away from Ricky’s mouth, but he’s not sure where to go from there. Stop, he thinks he wants to say. Or, wait. Or maybe, please don’t touch my breasts, if you do then I can’t pretend they aren’t there, please don’t remind me.

He can’t figure out how to articulate that, though. He says nothing, squeezes his eyes shut as Tim’s hands brush the swell of his chest.

It feels good. It’s supposed to feel good. It feels good. It feels good.

_ (It feels wrong) _

It feels good.

Part of Ricky is morbidly curious about where this is going to go. It’s the part of him that sits in the back of his brain with popcorn and a sneer, the part that has to comment on every single thing Ricky does or says or thinks. The part that makes him think about everything else while Tim is kissing him. The part that doesn’t let him fall into the moment, keeps reminding him that he’s in the wrong place, his brain is three inches to the left of where it should be, but his body keeps going without it--

That part is curious what will happen when Ricky, who is so bad at telling Tim not to touch his chest, is even worse at telling him not to touch anywhere else.

It’s coming soon, that part of his brain says, and Ricky knows it’s true because Tim has him up against a wall now, his hands insistent all over Ricky’s chest, where he’s  _ (too) _ sensitive and it feels  _ (wrong, stop) _ good. It feels good. Tim is pressing him into the bricks and it’s hurting the back of Ricky’s head and it feels good. It feels good. It feels good.

“You’re a cool girl,” Tim says against Ricky’s neck. Ricky knows what he means. Ricky has short hair and is aloof  _ (shy, too shy) _ and wears baggy clothes like a skater ( _ he doesn’t know how to skate, but he can bury himself in baggy clothes and forget his own shape) _ and he can’t believe that Tim thinks he’s cool. It almost makes it worthwhile for Tim to think Ricky is a girl, that the name is short for Erica instead of Richard. And of course he thinks that, because that’s Ricky’s real name, after all. He’s Erica.

He’s Erica and this feels good.

No one has ever called him cool before. No one has ever wanted him before.

_ (Years later--hours later--he’ll wonder if it’s because Tim could put his hands up Ricky’s oversized polo, and other girls didn’t do that. Other girls didn’t freeze and break off inside their own heads and let hands roam around their bodies. Maybe that makes him cool. Or maybe it makes him desperate.) _

Tim thinks Ricky is Erica, but he thinks Erica is cool, so Ricky tells himself he can be Erica for a few hours. 

He’s Erica, and Tim’s hands are inside his jeans, against his briefs  _ (girls in the locker room tease him because girls don’t wear briefs, Erica shouldn’t wear briefs) _ , pressing against him, and it hurts a little, and he’s Erica, and this feels good.

It feels good because if it didn’t he would cry, and Erica doesn’t cry. Erica is a cool girl.

He closes his eyes. Tim keeps touching Erica and Ricky floats away.

The mean part of him in the back of his head keeps watching.

This feels good.

 

/////////

 

Dick Simmons is grown now, is a captain in an army for a planet he’d never heard of until a year ago. He’s taller now, and his hair is receding way too early, and he’s glad for it. Half his body is metal but the rest of it is his, really his, and he thinks it’s a fair trade. 

Dick Simmons hasn’t thought about Erica since he changed his name, finally, for real. He has forgotten about Erica. It feels good.

He tells himself every day that he doesn’t remember Erica. Every day it feels good. It feels good.

Dick Simmons thinks too much. He knows this. Usually it’s not a bad thing. No one else on Red Team is inclined to think things through, and sometimes the thing they need most is a killjoy. And he’s good at that. He’s always been a nerd, but being cerebral isn’t a bad thing, usually. For a long time it meant he could think he was better than other people.  _ (He tells himself he doesn’t need the validation of feeling superior. He needs the validation.) _

But right now he is going to have sex with Dexter Grif and he is thinking too much.

At least, he figures they’re going to have sex. It’s what happens every time he kisses someone like this. The other guy pushes, kisses, gets bored, puts his hands all over Simmons, touches him where he isn’t Simmons but is still Erica, and suddenly Simmons is in high school again, and it’s Tim pushing into him, Tim panting in his ear, Tim telling him he’s a cool girl, Tim making him feel good. It has to feel good, he thinks, but it’s like he never quite remembers. Like he’s never quite there.

_ (He hasn’t kissed anyone in a long time.) _

That part of the back of his brain won’t shut up, hasn’t shut up since Simmons was Ricky, was Erica. Grif’s lips are on Simmons’ and the mean voice keeps telling him that Simmons still isn’t good at kissing. That he’s not responding enough. That maybe he kisses like a girl because he’s only ever been kissed as one. That maybe no one will ever kiss him like a boy, like a man.

Grif’s lips aren’t on Simmons’ anymore. Simmons isn’t not sure how long it took him to notice. He reels his brain back in from the distant, gray place it goes when people kiss him  _ (when the mean voice is the only one really aware of what’s going on) _ , but it’s hard to come back into focus. Grif doesn’t look happy. 

“Are you okay?” Simmons stares at Grif’s mouth saying the words. It’s a pointless question. Sometimes people asked him that when they kissed him, and every time he said--

“Yeah.”

And they would shrug and go back in, continue what they were doing  _ (sometimes he had to try so hard not to notice what they were doing) _ and they didn’t--

_ (They didn’t care that he was lying) _

“You’re a goddamn liar.” Grif squints at him. No one has caught Simmons before.  _ (Usually he convinces even himself that it’s the truth.) _ “What’s wrong?”

Simmons wants to say…

He’s not sure. 

He’s never been able to put into words what isn’t right here, why Grif’s hands feel like every pair of hands that ever touched him, why his lips feel like every pair of lips that didn’t notice Simmons’ lips unresponsive against them. Why every breath pulls him back into his own head, back into high school, into Erica. 

He’s always figured that if he can’t put it in words, it’s not worth saying. So he lets people touch him, doesn’t say anything, tells himself it 

 

feels

 

good.

 

He knows Grif is going to lose patience soon. He’ll hear Simmons’ silence and understand that it means everything is fine, everything is okay, Simmons wants this, he will put up with this, he will live with it like he always has. He knows Grif will do this even though he has never kissed Grif before, even though he’s lived with Grif for years and Grif has never shown any sign. Grif will do this because everyone else has done this. Simmons knows the pattern, feels it beating against his ribcage with his frantic heart, feels it in his mouth clenched between his teeth. This is what always happens to Erica, and Erica is what always happens to Simmons.

Grif pulls back.

_ (Grif is going to push forward, like Tim, like the others, tongue in Simmons’ mouth, in Ricky’s, in Erica’s--) _

Grif takes Simmons’ hands in his own.

_ (Tim had nice hands and he liked to hold Simmons’, until they kissed, and fucked, and then he forgot about Simmons’ hands, it seemed) _

Grif is saying something, asking a question, staring at Simmons. Grif looks scared.

_ (Simmons always told himself he wasn’t scared because he was pretending to be Erica and Erica was a cool girl and cool girls don’t get scared. He told himself he wasn’t scared through jelly legs and numb fingers and moments he doesn’t seem to remember and it’s true, he wasn’t scared, he isn’t scared, he won’t be scared) _

Grif is asking again. Simmons hears it this time, he thinks. “What can I do?” 

_ (Grif can keep going, if he wants to, he can keep kissing Simmons because it means someone wants to, and Simmons isn’t scared and this feels good so he will let Grif keep going) _

Grif will keep going any second now, he’ll lose patience, he will.

_ (Who wouldn’t lose patience with Simmons, who can’t even kiss or have sex, who no one believed when he said he wasn’t a girl, wasn’t Erica, who wouldn’t lose patience with someone who isn’t worth the time it takes to ask if he’s okay so they don’t) _

He is leaning against Grif’s shoulder, and Grif’s arms are around him--

_ (Tim’s arms, too warm, too close--) _

But

 

But.

 

Grif’s hands don’t travel anywhere. They stay in the same place on Simmons’ back, stroking through his tee shirt  _ (still oversized, even now, even now that his body is his and not Erica’s, because old habits die hard) _

_ (why isn’t Grif touching him like the others did?) _

and Grif isn’t trying to put his mouth on Simmons’, he’s muttering nonsense into Simmons’ receding hair, he’s rocking them back and forth  _ (maybe this is how he used to rock Kaikaina when they were children) _

_ (but that’s ridiculous, why would Grif take care of him like he took care of Kai) _

and his hands

_ (bigger than Tim’s hands, less elegantly shaped, but gentler, more gentle than Simmons can believe) _

stay exactly where he put them.

“Do you want to have sex,” Simmons says. It’s not a question because the answer has always been yes, even when he hasn’t asked, even when he was trapped in his head begging them to say no.

Grif pulls back  _ (they aren’t rocking anymore, and Simmons hates himself for missing it when he shouldn’t have had it in the first place) _ and he’s going to say yes, he’s going to kiss Simmons again and it’s going to start all over and he will be Erica again and he never escaped her, he never will--

“Maybe another time,” Grif says slowly, quietly, and he pulls Simmons against his chest again so softly, and his hands finally move 

_ (here it comes, here it always comes)  _

and they come to rest, one against Simmons’ skull, brushing through his coarse short hair, and the other resting on his cheek, warm

_ (for once not too warm, even though Grif’s hand is sweaty) _

and they rock together again, and it is warm

_ (not too warm, just warm enough) _

and Simmons didn’t know he could ever feel safe with another person until now.

“We won’t do anything you don’t want to,” Grif says. “Not ever.”

_ (the mean voice in Simmons’ head has nothing to say-- _

_ It’s  _ never _ had nothing to say--) _

“I’m okay just being with you.”

_ (Maybe-- _

_ Maybe he really--) _

“Like, if you ever want to make out or anything, I’m up for it,” Grif’s voice is shaking, he’s talking too fast, he doesn’t know what he’s saying and Simmons is not the only one losing his mind right now, “but I’m happy without that too, you know?”

_ (No one is ever happy with just that, with just Simmons, they always want something else, but.) _

_ (But maybe Grif isn’t like everybody else.) _

_ (They were together for years and years and Grif stayed, Grif follows him everywhere, Grif has been his best friend without ever once kissing him until now, and--) _

_ (Tim never wanted to be friends, never wanted to talk--) _

_ (Grif always wants to talk, they stay up all night talking, they keep each other out of nightmares talking--) _

_ (Grif has half of Simmons’ body and he has never once talked about it like it belonged to Erica--) _

_ (Grif has seen Simmons in the locker room and changing in his bunk and he knows, he knows what Simmons’ body is and has been, and he has never wavered or acted differently--) _

_ (He has always seen Simmons as just Simmons, just a guy he can tease and bully and be honest with and spend the rest of his life with.) _

“I just--”

Simmons doesn’t feel like Erica right now, doesn’t feel like Ricky. He feels like Simmons. Like he’s never quite been Simmons before because he never let himself be.

“--want to be with you.”

Simmons has never actually wanted to kiss someone before. He wants to kiss Grif now. He wants to kiss him like he’ll suffocate if he doesn’t, like he’s drowning. The voice in the back of his head is gone, the overthinking is gone, Erica is gone, Tim and the others are gone, and all that’s left is Grif’s voice, and his mouth, and his hands--

All that, and Simmons himself, finally in his own head, not three inches sideways but belonging here in his body like he never has.

He wants to kiss Grif. He doesn’t. 

He waits, and closes his eyes, and breathes against Grif’s shirt, and memorizes the feel of Grif’s fingers in his hair, and daydreams about the next time they do this, when they kiss and Simmons is there for the whole thing. He makes himself wait because he wants to be excited about it, to think about it for days, to smile at Grif every time he sees him. He knows Grif will kiss Simmons the way he holds him, will wait for Simmons to make the first move. He wants to make the first move.

_ (It’ll be his first kiss as Simmons, after all.) _


End file.
